Talk:Ryuujin
The legendary adventure of awesome Was never finished because the legendary unfixed bugs of GA - the sun moving unpredictably between reloads of the same map (A dream sequence during the mission REQUIRED it be night-time), and quest objects that worked in early development suddenly started falling through the floor. But for those who were dying to know (you can re-post this on the forum if you like it'd seem a bit weird me posting this so late in the day now) this is the full synopsis for the adventure (titled "Past imperfect") ACT 1 The captain finds himself sat on a bench in the peaceful gardens of a futuristic hospital facility on a small island with lush alien fauna looking out over an orange hued sea; apparently he's recovering from the cuts and bruises of his most recent (but unspecified) adventure. After a little while an alien, apparently a friend, tells the captain that he's late for mealtime and shows him the way to the canteen; a large hemispherical shaped interior with circular seating and tables dotted around a central servery staffed by Xaan. A couple of other aliens are present, including and not limited to a grouchy old Cephalopoid soldier ("the colonel") who'll talk at some length about his war stories, a hexapod with a hearring sensitivity, and fruitina called Lina who seems unresponsive but is very protective of their security blanket. The kitchen staff hands the captain his medication along with his dinner and mentions that they'll be sorry to see him go, they all enjoyed his stories of his adventures and that he'd better get a good night sleep for tommorow's evaluation and probable discharge. The captain takes his medication and dinner with him up to his room on the second floor and beds down for the night... ACT 2 In his dreams the captain is falling through darkness, before coming to rest in perfect blackness, behind him something chirps - but nothing distinct can be seen, only a pair of glowing purple eyes which follow him about. After a little exploring the remains of a crashed Avali hover tank looms into view, like the one he blew up outside the shelter at the end of Whom Gods Destroy. Against the smoke and white armour of the tank, the eyes can be seen to have form - black raptor-like shapes of avali; and there's more of them now, 4 in all. From the gunship something else can be seen; the top of a tentacle looming over the curvature, as he gets closer he sees the artifact itself sheltered below the clawlike tentacles spattered in familiar purple blood, and at it's foot the bodies of the Avali he killed in whom gods destroy. As he examines the bodies, the shadows of the avali suddenly set upon him slashing and biting, and no matter how he tries he can't stop them - he wakes with a scream. ACT 3 Beside his bed is a xaan orderly and his friend - apparently room-mate from the opening of act 1. Apparently the captain has over-slept for his assessment and discharge, so he hurries on over to the administration building; a tall building on a rise overlooking the facility, from the back of which an air-pad can be seen. Inside he enters a conference room where several xaan are seatted, it's apparent the xaan run the facility. The captain is informed, carefully, by the commitee that they feel he's not made enough progress to be discharged yet before being shown back to the park by a kindly orderly who explains they're moving him to block 4 tonight and he'll have to wait while they move his stuff. ACT 4 The captains room-mate is suprised to hear what happened, pointing out the captain is practically a model of health. The captain describes his nightmares, wondering whether maybe the xaan - being psionics - knew he was not mentally fit even if he was fine physically. The room-mate is shocked at the story; because he has the exact same story, he believes he was sent to the hospital (which is increasingly looking less like a hospital and more like an asylum) for murdering several avali miners, the chances of their stories matching are rediculous and there has to be something deeper going on. Seeing the captain just had a meeting, he figures nobody'll be too suprised to see him in administration and suggests he goes dig up some files in the archives (trying not to get caught in the process) and see what he can learn. ACT 5 The captain returns from administration with a number of files, information on the various patients he's seen: All of them are psychiatric patients - but his own file and that of his room mate are oddly absent. But additionally is four files on a group of Avali who were treatted there recently and "discharged" the very same day that the captain arrived. More disturbingly, tucked in amongst the avali files is a file detailing plans for some kind of "neural interfacing" device, a way of reading and implanting thoughts, that had been used in conjunction with their treatment. The plans were classified and noted by it's own designer that the Avali would be very upset if they even knew they had this tech. The captains room-mate says he has a plan, but he'll need a distraction; the captain goes to the break room, where using the other patients conditions he sets of a series of human dominos; stealling linas blanket and handing it to another patient so she attacks him, who's shoutting in turn upsets the hexapod's hearring sensitivity and so on... orderlys descend with shock batons and the captain slips away. ACT 6 At the start of the scene, the room-mate evaluates the situation; they have a device in the same block the captain is being moved to that is designed to mess with minds and memories. The room-mate believes he committed the same crimes that the captain did in the previous act, and while this was happening 4 Avali (or space-turkeys as he calls them ;p) vanished without proper discharge papers. He instructs the captain to find a way of accessing block 4 early (Several means present themselves, including but not limited to knocking out an orderly, overhearing one discussing his lost access card and disabling the forcefields by force) - while he goes rustle up some tools to disable whatever device is lurking in block 4; then they'll meet again in their old room. He also mentions if something happens he'll hide whatever tools he finds behind a loose fitting food replicator in the canteen. Inside block 4 it's dimly lit and most the furniture is covered in tarpaulins waiting to be uncovered and set in place, it's clearly unused at present. Tearing down a trap covering the grav shaft the captain descends to the basement level, voices can be heard on the wind and a mist is ever present. Finally at the end of a corridor sealled by a forcefield he can see it looming in the back of a hangar like underground warehouse - the artifact, the same one as he saw in WGD. The door in however is too small to have wheeled in such a large object, and there seems to be a hangar door on the far side of the chamber, probably opening onto the hidden south end of the island; that'll be the captain's plan of attack. Armed with this knowledge he returns to find his room-mate... ACT 7 Upon arriving at his room he finds the friendly orderly from before cleaning out his possessions but his room-mate nowhere in sight... in fact, upon being quizzed the orderly denies there ever being a room mate (Oddly enough, there is only one bed). Remembering plan B, the captain heads to the canteen and fishes around behind the replicator pulling out a large block of what looks like plastic explosives; how the hell his room mate got a hold of this stuff is a mystery. But upon seeing him clutching the block, the orderlies rush to subdue him with shock batons. The captain probably tries to fight at first, but discovers that his weapons have been somehow tampered with; not a suprise really - and yield no damage. But smashing a chair over their head yields the desired effect and the captain fights his way out of the complex and begins the long trek to the far side of the island to find the hangar entrance to the underground warehouse where he saw the artifact. As he gets closer he begins to see familiar things; demons, tentacles and other creations of the artifact, but this time he isn't fazed, he knows they're not real and blasts his way through with his weapons; they might not have worked on the orderlies, but for imaginary demons and imaginary gun is plenty symbollic. Outside of the warehouse a large massively shielded automated security botcomes online and tells him to leave, when he refuses it tries to subdue him with it's shock arms and pulser - apparently the mech is plenty real. The captain however reacts quickly and grabs the small rocks from the beach, carefully ducking around the mech to keep it off balance, while throwing the rocks at it's optics. A lucky hit sets the thing lurching off into the ocean where it becomes disabled for good. The captain makes his way down the winding entrance corridor into the hangar and confronts the artifact and the last few imaginary demons it can muster - he steps forward and slams the pack from the replicator against the artifact... ACT 8 Suddenly, the mist clears, the voices stop and the artifact... it's not gone. But it's different now it's a tall mechanical device, similar in shape, but clearly xaan in design and not the monolithic black form with purple crystals he once knew... and the plastic explosives.... it's leaking yellow goo. A voice causes the captain to spin around, behind him is a number of xaan and a couple of orderlies shock batons on standby. One of them; his doctor, or rather his therapist comes forward: “I’m sorry captain. I felt you’d been making progress, finally beginning to accept you were in fact in a hospital and not cruising the cosmos in another of your fantasies, so I had been lowering your dosage” demand to know where your friend has been taken, and remind the doctor you were there for injuries sustained during an adventure “You’re wrong on both counts I’m afraid. You were brought here by the Avali. You were tracked down and arrested after the Avali reported a mass-murder at one of their outposts" “Generously, they turned you over to the interstellar authorities instead of trying you in their own courts, you were found mentally unfit to go to prison and so you were sent to this asylum for treatment.” '' “Sadly you have been in denial ever since, even going so far as to having an imaginary sidekick who you credit as being the real murderer, while you go off with fantasies about adventuring across the cosmos”'' Examining the device, and your handiwork is a technician, asking his opinion... “I gotta hand it to you. I thought I’d seen it all, but trying blow up our neural interface device with protein paste out the food replicator. That’s a good one!” “This hunk of experimental junk was meant to study how Avali neural augmentation works. Quite useless for anything other than their neuro implants.” “We got a few of those space-turkey’s transferred to us last year, the government decided it was worth peering in their heads, see what makes them tick even if they’d freak if they knew we were studying it. They’re real protective of that tech.” “Never did figure it out though, seems their confused state stemmed from the fact their implants had been fried, only thing we learned is those guys are so jacked with implants they're practically Grox" “When the Avali dropped you off here they caught wind we had some of their kin here so they forced us to transfer them back into their custody, so we had to abandon the project and been clearing block 4 for new residents” Finally, behind the captain, guarding the now sealed door - and carrying a pass key, is the friendly orderly from before... “Sorry captain, the doc says I have to sedate you. You’re not walking out this room” demand to know what they’ve done with your bunk-mate “Um, captain. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but your room only has room for one. You’ve never had a bunk-mate. Do you mean your imaginary friend you tell your stories to?” “I mean, you’ve had some great stories over the months; distress beacons, battling 60ft tall monstrosities, they should write this stuff down and serialise it on TV, but... at the end of the day you havn't been in a space ship since the Avali left you here” “But looking at how stuff has unfolded today though, I guess you’ll be sticking around and having lots more ‘galactic adventures’ with us, right... ‘Captain’? - I'll see you 'round.” The captain now is faced with a choice; either walk out the door with the orderly and be sedated, accepting what he has just heard as being the honest truth, or he can grab a nearby wrench and smash the orderly with it and steal his pass-key and flee back out the door. Assuming the captain resists he flees back across the island to administration and fight's his way to the airpad, stealing the ship he has seen there and escapping the mad-house. Either way the epilogue is the same and reflects on the captains sanity - whether he really murdered the avali, whether it was all some insane xaan experiment that he fell foul of and whether even now he'll ever be free of what has become of him; and in the case of escaping - whether he escaped at all, or whether this is just the start of another drug induced "adventure". ...the captain, and player will never know. :3 - The legacy of Whom Gods Destroy was that the player never questioned his actions until it was too late. The legacy of Past Imperfect is that any adventure the player has played since Whom Gods Destroy; or for that matter they may ever play in future actually HAPPENED canonicly, or whether their captain is forever stuck in a limbo of insanity. There was a long-term plan to create a third adventure that saw an end to the story arc where the artifact from WGD was eventually found by the Avali salvage team and brought back their homeworld where it saw through it's master plan of integrating with the Oracle project (The Avali's technological singularity) to become a technological god of sorts. The captain having either been discharged or escaped the previous adventure deciding that he has to confront the artifact if he's ever to find peace of mind - follows the trail back to their homeworld and the mess that has ensued. The adventure would've focused heavily on the avali augmented reality and neural networking and the implications of living in a virtual world where the unreal and real are already indistinguishable, as well as revealing the artifacts complete nature as well as exploring the Avali themselves in their native habitat. As with the rest of the series it'd been a mind-screw roller-coaster. But after giving up due to the really buggy nature of GA, and the total lack of patches to resolve it, that'll never happen :/ -- 19:52, September 29, 2011 (UTC) Ryuujin